Home Study

Today we had our home study! I've been so anxious and excited for this day because this is our last formal meeting, which means we're almost approved! It went so well. It was so much easier than I could've ever imagined. I was so worried - wondering if our smoke detectors were in the right places, wondering if I had to baby-proof anything yet, etc. Our caseworker was so great. He stuck his head in the rooms and that was it. He just made sure we had smoke detectors (which were just fine) and a fire extinguisher. The rest of the time was spent watching a great video he brought. ABC had done a special a while ago that followed birthmothers along their path of placing their babies for adoption. It was so neat to watch. I have gained such a huge respect and love for these special girls that are in these situations. I can't even imagine what they have to go through. I now know that they are such an important part in Heavenly Father's plan to help families grow and I am so grateful for them and their selfless choice to do what they feel is best for their child. I can't wait to meet our birthmother - I already feel such an amazing love for her and her family. I've learned (especially from this video) that this isn't just hard for the birthmothers, but also their families. I feel like I've been so self-involved that I hadn't even started thinking about how hard this is for all those involved. This has been such an amazing growing experience for me - I can't believe how much I've learned in such a short time and how much I continue to learn about Heavenly Father's plan.

So our next step is to get our profile together while we wait for our background checks to come back. We still need to write our birthparent letter and figure our which pictures we're going to use. :) So exciting!!

Pictures

Today we had our friend Brenley take some pictures of us for our adoption profile. We went down to the U of O campus and found some really great spots to take pictures. She did such an amazing job! She was so fun to work with and had great ideas. She has only edited a few so far and I LOVE the ones I've seen. I'll post a few of my very favorites.

This last one is my very favorite! Thank you so much again Brenley!!!

First Purchase

My sister, Jodi, and her kids have been visiting us since last Friday. So Jodi and I thought it would be fun to go on my first baby shopping trip! It was so much fun, but also so surreal. I've been buying baby stuff for the last almost 12 years, ever since Jodi had her first baby. But it's always been things I've given away as presents. I've never bought anything like this for myself. It was so weird to think I got to take it all home and keep it! I'll admit, it was very overwhelming at first. :) I knew there was so much to get, but I felt like I was walking in circles, not really being able to take everything in. :) It's a good thing I had Jodi (who is very wise :) and helpful) there to help me! Once I picked out the first thing, which was a monitor, it was a cakewalk. Here's a picture of all the fun things I got! Thanks again, Jodi!! I had SO much fun!!

Second Meeting

This afternoon, Dan and I had our second meeting with our caseworker. It went really well again! He's so easy to talk to and I'm so excited we're working with him. We had our one-on-one interviews with him, which weren't really interviews, just advice to us. We went over the profiles we get to put together soon and talked about the letter we write to the birthparents. It was so fun to talk about the profiles because I am SO excited to put that together - to get our pictures taken and put together and hopefully help our birthmother get to know us. :) He showed us some videos from birthmothers on the LDSFS website, which I LOVED watching. I actually came home and watched the rest of them. I feel such an overwhelming love for these women that make this selfless decision! I love the first video by Sierra. If you want to see any of the videos, you can click here. We have our home study in two weeks from today - I'm so excited for it! Each step gets us closer!